Tag: Baroque

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Bach Cantatas

CD cover Bach Cantatas Oxford Bach Soloists

Nick Pritchard tenor, Yu-Wie Hu flute, Oxford Baroque soloists, directed by Tom Hammond-Davies
57:57
Signum Records SIGCD869

Tom Hammond-Davies had his formation at New College in the days of Edward Higginbottom, so the Oxford Bach Soloists which he founded were based there at first. Now they have taken wing, and after a few years as director of music at Wadham, he is now based in Dallas. Their first recording as a group is a programme of three Bach cantatas, which gives a good overview of their style and aims. Here I should confess a bias: I have worked with a number of his musicians, both singers and players.

First on this CD is BWV 82.2, Ich habe genung, is sung in the version Bach transposed up for traverso and soprano in 1731, elements of which found their way into Anna Magdalena’s Klavierbüchlein. Here it is sung by the tenor, Nick Pritchard, who is also the solo voice in BWV 55, Ich armer Mensch, the one cantata for solo tenor, which has an oboe d’amore paired with the traverso. In a quite different style which befits its earlier origin is BWV 4, Christ lag in Todesbanden, the cantata from Bach’s Mühlhausen trial on Easter Day 1707.

Common to all three is a string band of 3.3.2.1.1 which might be expected in Leipzig, but feels a little unbalanced in the early BWV 4, which has a 5-part string band with the two viola parts commonly scored in 17th-century Germany. But the reason becomes clear, as this cantata is performed by a chorus of 17 voices throughout – including in the numbers marked ‘solo’ – and has a basso continuo line bolstered by not only a fagotto but a harpsichord as well as the organ. These purist cavils aside, this is wonderful singing by (almost entirely) young singers with that direct, un-plummy tone that allows Bach’s polyphony to ring out with a clarity and energy that few more established choirs can rival. This is a triumphant vindication of one of the OBS’s aims – to bring on younger musicians. The chorale that concludes BWV 55, sung by a smaller group of singers – none of whom sang in BWV 4, save for Nick Pritchard – reveals what choral talent is available in Oxford; any of them could have sung in the choir for BWV 4.

The solo cantatas have a quite different feel. Here Hammond-Davies coaxes suave playing from his players, giving prominence to the traverso of Yu-Wei Hu whose long phrases and blending, woody tone means that Nick Pritchard never has to over-sing. Their best pairing is in BWV 55iii. Pritchard has a more soloistic persona in these Leipzig cantatas than he was allowed to show in BWV 4, but the clean lines of the chorale indicate that he can change mode.
Unique to this CD in my experience is a fine note on the text of Bach cantatas by Henrike Lähnemann, Professor of Mediaeval German at Oxford for the past ten years. A musician herself, she introduces us to the theology and craft of Christoph Birkmann, a university student and a candidate for the ministry, who was trusted by Bach to fashion the libretti for BWV 82 and 55.

This is a splendid CD. If they manage to make more, I hope that Hammond-Davies will manage to try out solo singers from the ranks of his ‘chorus’. He is ideally placed to perform works with a ‘choir’ of Concertisten whose parts are doubled selectively by Ripienisten from time to time, and he should trust his youngest singers: Bach did.

David Stancliffe

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Bach: Arias for alto

CD cover Zoltan Darago Bach arias for alto

Zoltan Darago, Les Talens Lyriques, Christophe Rousset
Aparté AP336

Zoltán Daragó is a young Hungarian countertenor who made a name for himself in his homeland as a star in the opera company there at an early age, and sang the title role of the Pharoah in Philip Glass’s opera AKHNATEN in Helsinki when he was just 28.

This CD is a set of splendid arias from the Bach cantatas, put together as a dramatic showcase of the range and diversity of arias for the alto voice. It was recorded in Paris, where Daragó has made his European base, with a period band, Les Talens Lyriques, who are directed by Christophe Rousset, a deservedly well-known Parisian harpsichordist.

This sounds all good. But – and it’s a big but – there are some real oddities. First, I do not care for his voice much – there’s a tight vibrato that means that the instrumental and vocal timbres never meet; and second, some of the wonderful music is really beyond what this style of singing can cope with: In the opening aria from BWV 83, Erfreute Zeit, he barely gets his voice round the semiquavers in tempo while the violin concertato and corni are whooping it up. The third oddity is the enormous size of the band: 6.5.3.4.1 plus another cello in the continuo group is a bit much with traversi, a four-part oboe band, and a couple of corni, and so they are miked down. There’s some splendid playing, like the oboe d’amore obbligato in BWV 115, but the instruments are not conceived as a Bachian band of equal partners so much as an accompanying orchestra.

Perhaps the opening aria of BWV 170, Vergnügte Ruh’, shows Daragó at his best: not hurried, and the ensemble neater. But I still would not rush to buy this CD, however much of a hoped-for calling card this might be.

David Stancliffe

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Monteverdi Testamento: Vespro della Madonna 1643

CD cover Monteverdi Vespro della Madonna Le Poème Harmonique Vincent Dumestre

Le Poème Harmonique, Vincent Dumestre
87:28
Château des Versailles Spectacles CVS145

Those familiar with the life and works of Monteverdi can be forgiven if they feel slightly confused by the title of this thrilling, pulsating issue. They are, of course, likely to be aware that 1643 is the date of Monteverdi’s death, not a date of publication for a setting of Vespers. There is, as many will also know, only one unified Monteverdi collection of the five Vespers psalms (Dixit Dominus, Laudate pueri, Laetatus sum, Nisi Dominus and Lauda Jerusalem) plus the Magnificat and attendant motets, that being the famous publication of 1610. This present set is therefore a conjectural Vespers put together largely from two much later publications, Selva morale e spirituale of 1640/41, which includes 38 sacred works, including two quite separate settings of the Magnificat and several of the Vespers psalms, in addition the Laetatus sum and Nisi Dominus from the posthumous 1650 collection. And this is where ‘testimento’ comes in, for Selva morale in particular does indeed represent a summation of the almost bewildering variety of styles Monteverdi employed during his long career as a composer of sacred music. Rather pretentiously termed ‘Monterverdi’s “other” Vespers’ at the heading of a detailed and fascinating note by Matthieu Franchin, it should be obvious from the above that this is not the only way an alternative Monteverdi Vespers can be performed and indeed it is not unique in that respect.

What it is, as the above spoiler implies, is an exceptional recording in which the glorious acoustic of the Chapelle Royale at Versailles plays its own role. Vincent Dumestre, now one of the doyens of the French early music scene, has never been one to eschew extremes or a grandiose approach. Here he not only employs large choral forces, 24 voices, plus a continuo section including two theorbos and a triple harp to help provide a ripe bed of arpeggiations that at times feels a trifle over-egged. But there is little music so suited to lavish gesture as much of this is, especially that written in the polychoral style founded in Venice by the Gabrielis. The first psalm, the 8-part Dixit Dominus secondo (SV 264) is a mouth-watering introduction to what is to come. The first entry of the full chorus is electrifying in its rhythmic vitality, while ‘Virgam virtutis’ introduces a first-rate team of soloists, firstly in solos, then as an ensemble drawing the first of many rich tapestries of sound evoked by Dumestre. At the opposite end of the spectrum, the words ‘De torrente’ bring a memorable moment of stillness before we are hastened to the doxology with its rapid iteration of words tumbling over each other.

Throughout the performance, there are so many points of interest that it would be impractical to try to draw attention to many of them. Certainly, one is the six-part Laetatus sum primo (SV 198), scored primarily for Monteverdi’s favourite combination of pairs of voices. Here it is the two tenors (Paco Garcia and Cyril Auvity) especially that excel, as indeed they do throughout the performance, communicating strongly in a manner not quite achieved by their soprano and bass colleagues. The doxology, sung by the full choir, is a magnificent blaze of almost overwhelming glory. While on the subject of the doxology, it should be noted there is an error in the booklet’s text, where that of Laudate sum pueri (SV 270) is printed as the opening of the following Stabat Mater (SV 96)! That solemn motet is given a beautifully judged reading, mournful brass succeeded by the male voices of the choir joined by the lovely sound of the upper voices. This is ravishingly lovely, perfectly tuned choral singing. Finally, mention must be made of Pianto della Madonna, a solo motet in the stile rappresentivo that is a contrafactum (or sacred adaptation) of the famous Lamento d’Arianna from Monteverdi’s lost opera L’Arianna (1608). Here it is given great intensity by Perrine Devillers, passages done with organ accompaniment communicating more strongly than those where the lute and harp tend to be obtrusive.

Uplifting, spiritually refreshing, moving and exhilarating by turn, this joyous set is strongly recommended.

Brian Robins

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The Madrigal Reimagined

CD cover The Madrigal Reimagined

Hannah Ely, Toby Carr, Monteverdi String Band, directed by Oliver Webber
63:41
Resonus Classics RES10341

This is an extraordinary CD – an exercise in recreating performance practice for music published around the year 1600, when the seconda prattica was sweeping through the world of song and reinvigorating the old forms with new techniques. Oliver Webber chronicles how the practice of ornamenting the melodic line of a song or a dance tune with diminutions grew from its vocalised beginnings to become the mainstay of what would emerge as the Italian concerto style in the hands of Vivaldi and his contemporaries.

What is so enlightening is that this exploration is about instrumental as much as vocal music. There is indeed vocal music – and Hannah Ely sings stylishly and elegantly – but much of the material is presented instrumentally. After a Canzona by Merulo, a setting of Cruda Amarilli by Johann Nauwach with his own vocal diminutions is followed by Monteverdi’s setting played instrumentally before we come to Cipriano de Rore, the father of the madrigal, where Toby Carr’s sensitive presentation of Anchor che col partire is given in lute intabulation by Emannuel Adriaenssen before we hear it vocalised with diminutions by Giovanni Battista Bovicelli – Ely’s final major third is splendidly tuned – and Webber presents his own diminutions alongside those of Orazio Bassani on Vergine Bella.

The string band (Oliver Webber and Theresa Caudle, violins, Wendi Kelly and David Brooker, alto and tenor viola and Mark Caudle, bass violin) are heard not only with the voice and in canzonas by Merulo and Giovanni Gabrieli, but in Monteverdi’s dance music. His Ballo dell’ingrate is the source not only of the ballo but of the lament Ahi, troppo è duro – introducing the theme of regret at losing this life and the shadowy underworld, the theme that is central to Monteverdi’s Orfeo from which a sequence of numbers concludes this elegant essay in balancing the melodic with the improvisatory which was such an important feature in establishing the new Baroque style. Webber’s diminutions for voice and bass violin on Palestrina’s Vestiva i colli show us how the old world of polyphonic madrigals morphed into the expressive world of the new music. The give and take here as the two listen to one another and exchange ideas reveals a central feature of performance practice in the Baroque – how to ornament a line while keeping your inventiveness within the bounds of what can be imitated: this is still the foundation for J.S.Bach’s two-part inventions 100 years later. Ornamenting a line is only possible of course when there is a single singer or player on each part – something taken for granted throughout the 17th century, I suspect.

I learned a lot not only from the splendid playing and singing on this CD but also by being introduced to novel ways of thinking about the evolution of and interplay between the musical elements that made up the momentous changes that music was undergoing in Italy. Storytelling, the foundation of what was becoming opera, would become public spectacle in the opera theatre of Venice and not just as courtly entertainment in private gatherings and so gripped the imagination in Italy. The combination of recitative and arioso, derived ultimately from the Madrigal, was translated into music of an extraordinary emotional intensity and would lead ultimately to Bach’s great Passion narratives.

Webber’s carefully planned programme is not only a treat to listen to; it also tickles the imagination and stimulates us to think hard about the source and development of the changes that were taking place in music in Italy at the hinge between the 16th and 17th centuries. This is a challenging as well as an elegant programme and I am grateful for having heard it. Webber’s liner notes are stimulating, and include details of the instruments as well as the sources: they are a model for what we need to engage with this stimulating performance.

David Stancliffe

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Lodovico Viadana: Sacri Concentus

CD cover Viadana Sacri Concentus

The Viadana Collective
Maximilien Brisson
75:01
Passacaille PAS 1142

This admirable CD from The Viadana Collective offers us a glimpse of a key figure in the background of music-making in the churches of northern Italy in late 16th and early 17th century Italy. One of the chief instructors and a notable composer in his own right was Viadana, very little of whose music has been recorded. He was in charge of the music at the cathedral in Mantua in the 1590s and this recording made in the Basilica di Santa Barbara there uses its historic Antegnati organ of 1565, which includes a 16’ Fiffaro rank, tuned to beat with the Principale which can be heard in track 17, as well as split keys for the ‘black notes’, so using a remarkably clean pre-Baroque Meantone tuning. What Viadana is chiefly remembered for is the creation of what we know as the figured bass or basso continuo, and his motets for single voices performed here with the fine full-bodied organ that he certainly knew, shows the motet shifting from a solid polyphonic style towards one in which a single line – often ornamented – is accompanied by at least the organ basso continuo, but sometimes with instruments substituting for the vocal lines. The group’s organist, Iason Marmaras, contributes some Intonazione in the style of Andrea Gabrieli to introduce each group of motets, which allows us to hear the organ on its own.

The motets here are largely from the collection Viadana published in a revised form in Frankfurt in 1615 as Centum sacri concentus ab una voce sola ecclesiastici which are harmonically more adventurous and belong more distinctively of the seconda prattica than his earlier collection Centum concerti ecclesiastici of 1602. This argues Maximilien Brisson, the moving spirit behind this welcome production, was a seminal contribution to the emerging solo monody, where consideration for the voice type as well as close attention to the speech rhythms of the text placed this work at the forefront of the new monody in church music.

These are contrasted with ensemble singing which reveals that the singers in the single voice motets, where their vocal agility and stylish word painting is so much in evidence also make an impressive ensemble, so key in performances like this with absolute parity between voices and instruments. The singers are Suzie LeBlanc, Vicki St Pierre, Charles Daniels and Roland Faust and they show in Vinea mea how important it is to have such a clean, violone-like bass as the foundation for such an ensemble.

Bruce Dickey sets the instrumental style with amazing diminutions in O quam suavis. And I was unprepared for the equally remarkable passaggii played by Maximilien Brisson in Rognoni’s divisions on Lassus’s Susanne ung jour. There is also an example of Viadana’s instrumental Sinfonie musicale a otto voci (Venice 1610), virile instrumental canzone in two 4-part cori.

In style, the Viadana Collective has some things in common with groups like Jamie Savan’s Gonzaga Band and Gawain Glenton’s In Echo. Distinctive about this fine CD however is that it concentrates on a single composer and affirms the importance of a substantial organ of the right period as a foundation for a convincing balance where voices and instruments have absolute parity, substituting regularly for one another.

This is not only a welcome addition to our understanding of this hinge moment in western music, but also essential listening and a delight throughout. I thoroughly recommend it.

David Stancliffe

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Fasch: Die Vier Tageszeiten

CD cover Fasch Die vier Tageszeiten L'arpa festante Uhl

Ulrike Hofbauer, Monika Mauch, Georg Poplutz, Thomas Gropper SATB, L’arpa festante, conducted by Markus Uhl
64:54
Christophorus CHR 77480

Johann Friedrich Fasch is today arguably best known for something he didn’t do rather than what he did. In 1723, having recently accepted the position of Kapellmeister at the court of Anhalt-Zerbst, he withdrew his application to become cantor at the Thomaskirche in Leipzig, of which he was an alumnus, apparently because he did not wish to teach Latin. That post ultimately went to J S Bach. What Fasch did do was create a body of compositions, many now lost, that makes Bach’s prodigious output look positively miserly. In addition to a huge number of instrumental works, it includes no fewer than eight cycles of sacred cantatas, having been expected during his tenure in Zerbst (from 1722 until his death in 1758) to provide at least three cantatas for each weekend.

It is not known how much Fasch contributed to a genre that played an important role in the occasional life of an 18th-century court. That was the ceremonial odes or serenatas that were an integral part of the celebration of births, birthdays, marriages and deaths of rulers and their closest kin. In Fasch’s case only two such works survive today, the first celebrating the birthday of Johann August, the ruling prince of Anhalt-Zerbst on 9 August 1723, the second, interestingly, that of the Princess Sophie Augusta Frederica of Anhalt-Zerbst, the future Catherine the Great in 1757. It is the earlier with which we are concerned here.1

Freudenbezeugung der Vier Tageszeiten (Joyful Testimony of the Four Times of Day) is described as a serenata, implying it was given in a dramatic context, although this is not clear. Both words and music were written by Fasch, the text introducing four allegorical figures – Aurora, the morning, Phoebus, noon, Hesperus, the evening, and Cynthia the night – whose panegyrics celebrate Johann August’s birthday. The work is lavishly scored for three trumpets and timpani (who only appear in the final chorus, sung by the soloists), two recorders that have a concertante role in the charming triple-time sleep aria for Cynthia, and oboes, given a concertante part in arias for Aurora. Arias are all in da capo form, while stylistically the music is in the galant style that forms the bridge between the Baroque and Classical. As anyone that has heard any of Fasch’s innumerable suites or concertos knows, his music is never less than enjoyable, melodically highly inventive and frequently displaying felicitous touches of instrumental colour – all features on generous display here.

The performance is dutiful and efficient without ever catching fire. Of the four soloists only soprano Monika Mauch is likely to be familiar outside Germany and here in the alto role of Aurora she is the pick of the soloists singing her single aria with considerable charm. The soprano Ulrike Hofbauer (Cynthia) has a bright, agile voice, but her diction is poor even by the low standards that prevail today. The opening of the central section of the ‘sleep’ aria mentioned above screams for a messa di voce but doesn’t get one, but Hofbauer’s ornamentation is good and she even has a trill. Neither of the male soloists rises above average, while the orchestral playing is proficient but hardly inspired by Markus Uhl’s pedestrian direction. Like so many German Baroque ensembles, L’arpa festante favour fussy, over-indulgent continuo that includes a lute, an instrument that was not on the pay role of the Anhalt-Zerbst court in 1723. I was recently berated by a reader on my Facebook site for complaining about the lack of an essential translation of a text. Well, this also comes with only the German text, but it would be idle to pretend it matters as much here.

The serenata is preceded by a four-movement Fantasia featuring different concertante instruments, including in the Largo (iii) a chalumeau. Full marks here to Uhl for understanding that a Baroque largo does not proceed at a funereal pace.

Brian Robins

  1. Textbooks for many others survive in the library of the Francisceum in Zerbst, now a secondary school but once a renowned university. ↩︎
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Kagami : Mirror

Music by Hume, Marais, Bach, Dollé, Purcell, Couperin
Kaori Uemura gamba, Ricardo Rodríguez Miranda gamba, Aline Zylberajch harpsichord
63:06
Ramée RAM2204

The Japanese viol player Kaori Uemura has chosen the yamato or old Japanese word “kagami” for a mirror as the title of her CD to acknowledge the fact that musicians of the 17th and 18th centuries viewed music as a reflection of the divine. Of the composers represented, Charles Dollé is perhaps the only unfamiliar one. He was active as a gambist in and around Paris in the first half of the 18th century and was much in demand as a teacher and performer. He left a large body of published music for gamba of which Uemura gives us the attractive Premiere Suite from Pieces de Viole avec Basse Continue (1737). In this and the other more familiar music, Uemura’s rich tone, declamatory style and technical dexterity combine with the musicality of the whole ensemble to give us a very enjoyable account of his chosen repertoire. A couple of pieces are arrangements, of which that for solo viol of Dido’s Lament by Purcell is particularly effective and affecting. Although with its visionary title and its prologue, three acts and epilogue this recording seems unnecessarily to aspire to be more than the sum of its parts, what it is is a thoroughly effective programme of familiar and unfamiliar music compellingly played and a joy to listen to.

D. James Ross

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Lost in Venice

CD cover Infermi d'amore Lost in Venice Vadym Makarenko

Infermi d’Amore, Vadym Makarenko
65:12
eudora EUD-SACD-2206

This programme of music for strings incorporating concerti for solo violin, two violins, and cello respectively, and a sinfonia by Vivaldi, as well as an overture by Veracini and a violin concerto by Marcello, has been selected to represent a body of work which has been lost, left unfinished or found its way mysteriously to Venice. Some of the music has had to be reconstructed for the recording and – incredibly – two of the Vivaldi violin concertos and the sinfonia are recorded here for the first time. If the linking principle may seem a little tenuous, and the musicians should not feel the need to excuse performing such effective music, there is in fact a fugitive feel to many of these performances which seems to suit the music. The small ensemble of one solo and four ripieno violins, one viola, one cello and double bass, with bassoon, theorbo/guitar and organ/harpsichord gives the texture a volatility which is perfectly suited to this repertoire, and the players take full advantage of this with their spontaneous approach. The solo playing from violinist Vadym Makarenko and cellist Bruno Hurtado Gosalvez is stunningly effective, and this truly international ensemble whose members met up while studying at the Schola Cantorum Basiliensis exudes energy and enthusiasm.

D. James Ross

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Un clavecin pour Marcel Proust

CD cover Olivier Baumont Un clavecin pour Marcel Proust

Olivier Baumont
46:00
Encelade ECL2204

The idea of a harpsichord for Marcel Proust may at first glance seem like a bit of a historical mismatch between an essentially Baroque instrument and a writer of the late 19th and early 20th century. But of course this is an author in search of times gone by, and harpsichords and harpsichordists make regular appearances in his writings. Olivier Baumont has cleverly sought out these allusions and constructed a programme of the music mentioned as well as pieces ‘in the old style’ by Proust’s friends and fellow enthusiasts for earlier centuries, Reynaldo Hahn and Louis Diémer. Playing appropriately three impressive 20th-century copies of 18th-century original harpsichords, Baumont explores the 19th-century revival of this Baroque repertoire witnessed by Proust and included in his novels. Grouping the music by Rameau, Bach, Scarlatti and Couperin interspersed by pastiches by Anthiome, Hahn and Ravel under the heading of the Proust characters the music is associated with, Baumont constructs a concert programme for an event which never in fact took place on an instrument (Proust’s clavecin) which never actually existed – a very proustian questioning of memory! He is joined by soprano Ingrid Perruche, violinist Pierre-Eric Nimylowycz, and fellow clavecinist Nicolas Mackowiak for what turns out to be a very engaging sequence of music. This CD is very much a flight of fancy of harpsichordist Olivier Baumont and for all it hangs on what in Scotland we would call ‘a bit of a shoogly peg’, his beautiful playing and the thought-provoking juxtaposition of pieces makes for a satisfying and involving experience.

D. James Ross

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Handel: Israel in Egypt

CD cover Handel Israel in Egypt Jeannette Sorrell

A Dramatic Oratorio, adaptation by Jeannette Sorrell
Margaret Carpenter Haigh, Molly Netter, Daniel Moody, Jacob Perry, Edward Vogel, Apollo’s Singers, Apollo’s Fire, directed by Jeannette Sorrell
74:13
Avie AV2629

I should start by addressing the edition of Handel’s Israel in Egypt created by the director Jeannette Sorrell for this recording. She ‘restores’ the opening Lament of the Israelites for the Death of Joseph included by Handel in his 1739 version, but sometimes omitted from later editions and performances. This is indeed a worthwhile exercise, although not nearly as radical a move as Sorrell’s note suggests – in fact most of the recordings I consulted open with the Lament. However, her further concomitant decision to cut down the remaining two sections is much more controversial. Her stated aim ‘to keep the length of the oratorio manageable for modern audiences’ seems ridiculous – are we to trim other extended musical masterpieces in response to the shortening attention span of the modern public? This decision would seem to me to have much more to do with fitting the work on a single CD, and to run directly contrary to the group’s vision of an authentic performance on period instruments. The CD package does prominently announce that this performance uses an adaptation of the original score, but I doubt that any prospective buyers would suspect the extent that the music has been compromised. This is so disappointing as the singing and playing of the Apollo forces is compelling and utterly convincing and Sorrell’s direction crisp and insightful. What a pity they didn’t decide just to trust the composer’s dramatic instincts – he was hardly a man inexperienced in the arc of drama – and use their excellent forces to record the piece as he wrote it. I have recently encountered several  ‘adaptations’ of Baroque pieces, designed to ‘improve’ upon the original and which have proved disastrous. This recording is by no means a disaster, but it is ultimately a disappointing misrepresentation of Handel’s work – a missed opportunity. As a footnote, I should mention the extraordinary 1888 recording of the annual Handel Festival performance by 4000 singers of Moses and the Children of Israel from this oratorio (available online), one of the earliest recordings of Handel’s music and a remarkable insight into the performance practices of this period! I’m sure the Victorian audience was thrilled with this version…

D. James Ross